Boys to shower with girls in NH schools?

Local schools are supposed to be run by local taxpayers and parents. Now bureaucrats in Washington D.C. believe they can determine who enters the bathroom with your son or daughter, even if that person happens to be of the opposite sex.

The New Hampshire School Boards Association (NHSBA) drafted a model policy for school boards to adopt. New Hampshire parents and taxpayers never asked for this kind of a new policy. Instead the U.S. Department of Education, using their threats of intimidation and coercion, are now informing schools that they need to develop a new non-discrimination policy for transgender students based on Title IX. AND, if they don’t develop these new policies, they risk losing Title IX funding.

The Candia proposed policy is based on a model policy coming from the New Hampshire School Boards Association. The Candia School Board will be discussing this at a school board meeting onApril 7th at 6pm in the Moore Cafeteria. This new policy has already caused some concern for parents in the district.

The policy first requires that all programs activities and employment be free from discrimination based on sex, sexual preference and gender identity. This leaves out a large number of individuals who may be discriminated against. For instance, where is the provision for religion or body type ? Those who subscribe to religious beliefs or have to manage a weight issue have been discriminated against but have been left out of the language in this new policy.

In addition to that important question, are these policies based on reliable information from the U.S. Department of Education or are they purposely leaving out information that local board members need in order to make these important policy decisions.? After 40 years of Title IX on the books, the U.S. Department of Education now wants to assert a new interpretation of the law?

Parents are concerned for their children now that these policies include language allowing children of the opposite sex to use the bathroom and locker room. Anyone with a teenager knows that there is a possibility of that “one student” taking advantage of a policy like this in order to gain access to the locker or bathroom. This was already done in Washington after a man decided to test the new Transgender law and undress in the women’s locker room at a neighborhood pool. When the women tried to kick him out, he referenced the new law and his right to be there.

These are the kind of situations that have caused parents to question and even oppose these new policies.

Every student’s privacy and safety matter. School policies should respect the needs of all children. School boards should craft policies that are both respectful of the privacy concerns of all children and sensitive to the diverse needs of individual children. No child should be forced into an intimate setting– like a restroom or locker room– with another child of the opposite sex. We need to sympathize with children who have difficult personal issues to work through. But teenage boys shouldn’t be permitted to deal with those issues in intimate settings with young girls.

A sensible policy that is objective and enforceable is one that ensures single sex access to areas where children undress or engage in other private activities.

Schools have broad discretion to handle these delicate matters in ways that make sense based on their school’s unique needs and facilities. The federal government has no legal authority to regulate what restroom children use in our local schools, let alone issue threats against those schools willing to comply with its radical agenda. The Obama administration is flat out wrong when it tells schools that Title IX requires them to open children’s restrooms to the opposite sex. The federal government has no business dictating what restrooms school children must use. Is there nothing our out-of-control federal government will not try to regulate?

The New Hampshire School Boards Association is doing a disservice to the local communities throughout New Hampshire by pushing this new model policy on our schools and children. A school district’s primary duty is to protect its students. Allowing boys to play on girls’ sports teams is unfair and it poses great physical risk to girls, particularly at the middle school and high school level. The school district should honor its duty to parents and children, not expose itself to lawsuits from students whose privacy and safety are threatened by unnecessary policy changes.

Forcing children to share restrooms, showers and even hotel rooms with the opposite sex is an invasion of privacy for children who deserve to be safe in intimate settings while away from home.

“Under current law, neither states nor school districts will lose Title IX funding for enacting laws and policies that require students to use the restrooms and locker rooms of their biological sex.” (source Alliance Defending Freedom)No Loss of Federal Funding – ADF

It’s up to parents and school board members to listen to what the local community wants for their schools and the students who attend them. Adopting a policy that takes into consideration students who desire greater privacy when using a facility without ignoring the privacy needs of the other students is a common sense approach that takes into consideration the needs of all of the students. This why many schools have made accommodations for transgender students to have access to a private restroom.

The New Hampshire School Boards Association is funded by parents and taxpayers but again, fails to offer them the kind of common sense policies we expect. Parents and taxpayers would be wise to eliminate the funding to the NHSBA through the dues they pay in their annual school budget. If the NHSBA cannot adequately present all information in and offer a common sense policy, it’s time to stop paying their administrators dues to fund their six figure salaries.

Ann Marie Banfield currently volunteers as the Education Liaison for Cornerstone Action in New Hampshire. She has been researching education reform for over a decade and actively supports parental rights, literacy and academic excellence in k-12 schools. You can reach her at: [email protected]

About The Author

Ann Marie Banfield has been researching education and working as an activist for over a decade. She has traveled to Concord to lobby on behalf of parental rights and literacy. Working with experts in education from across the country, she offers valuable insight into problems and successes in education. She holds a B.A. in Business Management from Franklin University in Columbus Ohio. Ann Marie and her husband have three children and reside in Hampton, NH

2 Comments

Ernie Bridge
on April 5, 2016 at 2:27 pm

I am beginning to be fed up with people who choose to pursue some alternative lifestyle then demand all the perks of “equal rights” to accommodate their special identity. Boys and girls, and grownups choose to separate themselves during intimate encounters (unless they choose the intimacy) because they are built different. Those few who choose to to ignore their biology deserve privacy too but that can easily be handled with one-person facilities. The many pre-existing “family restrooms” serve that purpose well. By the way I just recently noticed one such facility, in a local store rechristened “LGBT”. That kind of bend-over-backwards PC may be good marketing but it abandons the civility that has made western civilization possible.

Obama… IT IS WRONG
… to force men and women to have their nakedness exposed to “surprise visitors” of the other sex in sex-private changing rooms.
… to put them in a position where they can not avoid seeing the other gender uncovered.
… to force husbands and wives, who desire to remain covered from the opposite sex by all but their partner, into nakedness before other men and women.
… to take from parents the right of decision making in when it is appropriate for, and to what degree, their children to be exposed to the opposite sex + sexuality.
… to take from little ones the right to chose to keep their nakedness covered until they desire to disrobe before a member of the opposite sex.
… to turn the safety of a school environment into a place of embarrassment, shame, lust, bullying and danger.
… to take from parents the right to know (+ of veto) if their child will be sleeping in a room with the opposite sex on school trips.
… to force children to sleep in the same rooms with other sexes when it is against their own moral values.
… to force liberal evil upon a Christian (yes, still) nation. YOU declaring the passing of christianity does not make it so!

“So here, in a nutshell, is the government’s new policy with regard to sex and sexuality among youngsters:
• If you’re a boy who shows a picture of your penis to a girl in your class, you have likely violated both federal child pornography laws as well as local sexual harassment laws. If this happens consistently in your school, the school has violated Title IX.
• If you’re a boy who says he’s a girl, the girl must be placed in position to see your penis and testicles. If the school does not allow this, the school has violated Title IX.
• If you’re an adult who sexually touches a child with the consent of the child, you have committed a crime, since children are incapable of consent.
• If you’re an adult who gives a child hormone therapy or surgery to prevent normal development of the genitals, with the consent of the child, you are a hero.”
• http://www.breitbart.com

“It’s interesting that it’s the very same liberal voices who have in recent years been so agitated about girls’ rights — who’d call a wolf-whistle assault, let alone a grope — now say any worried women should pipe down” http://www.spectator.co.uk/

“At least one of the plaintiffs, a female student at the high school, was harassed and bullied because she is uncomfortable changing in the same locker room with a biological boy.
“While she was in the changing stall, other girls who were in the locker room began calling her names, including ‘transphobic’ and ‘homophobic’,” the lawsuit states.”
You want proof? Look how many men have this response on comments sections” “Wow! Now I really do miss school!” … You see the problem?!?!?